How Do I Find the Right Translator or Agency?

I know it can be overwhelming to even know where to start! You've got free automatic translation options, such as Google Translate, ChatGPT, DeepL, etc. You've got platforms like Fiverr, Upwork, and others that offer freelancers with a wide range of skill levels and rates. Then you've got translation agencies that may seem more expensive in general, leaving you to wonder what you're getting for your money.

Your book has become a part of you. It represents days, weeks, months, maybe even years of work. You came up with new ideas, you put your soul into getting those ideas on paper, you made changes, you corrected mistakes, you added new parts, you removed old parts, you went through periods of writer's block, and you had major breakthroughs. 

The translation of your book is a reflection of how seriously you take your book. It's a reflection of your confidence in the work you've done. It's a reflection of your belief in the power of the written word in general, but more particularly, your belief in the words you have personally chosen to tell the story or share the insights within you.

Translation is a major investment, and it's so important to find the right translator to trust with that investment. The fact that you've found my page probably means that you're taking this decision seriously, which is already a good sign! Let me give you some suggestions about where to go from here.

1. Translation of your book cannot rely too much on artificial intelligence or machine translation.

For some of you, this will already sound obvious. For others, though, you may have seen how well certain tools do with translating day-to-day stuff. Maybe you've used Google Translate on a website and were able to understand everything just fine. Or maybe you sent an article to ChatGPT or DeepL and the translation seemed to come out perfect or nearly perfect.

This is all fine when the goal is simply to communicate a point or two. With books, however, you are not just communicating a point. You're conveying experiences, feelings, beauty, and words that you have poured your entire heart and soul into. Not only will AI make some mistakes in the details, but more importantly, it will not convey the beauty of your Italian original to an English-speaking audience. It will sound mechanical, stilted, and possibly even confusing.

Even though AI is always improving, recent research has shown that AI translation for literary texts is still missing the mark. From my own experience, here's one real-life example of what happens when you publish a translation that is too AI-heavy. And here is my ongoing collection of examples of where AI is floundering.

I'm not anti-AI by any means. I frequently use it to generate ideas for both my work and personal life. I do a bit of Python and Javascript coding, and AI has quickly gotten me out of jams! But for book translation, AI is simply not there. It's not even close.

A word of caution: some translators are dishonest about their use of automatic translation, so you'll also need to look closely at other factors, as outlined below.

2. You need a native English speaker.

Most real, professional translators only translate into their native language, and not vice versa. Period. 

It's a matter of ethics for those of us who believe in delivering only the highest quality translations. If you ever see a translator claiming to translate from one language to another AND vice versa, be very skeptical. It is possible in a few cases, such as a translator who grew up in a completely bilingual environment, but these cases are rare.

I won't go into a long explanation here because a quick Google search will lead you to many resources that explain this in great detail if you're interested. But in short, a non-native English speaker may give you a translation that is 100% technically correct where:

• there's not a single grammatical error...

• there's not a single spelling mistake...

• all the meaning is conveyed accurately...

... BUT it may still be a bad translation, or at least not a very good one. Why is that?

There are word and phrasing choices that a native English speaker simply would not make. At worst, these word choices will confuse your reader. At best, your reader may be able to understand the words, but they will not sound as beautiful as they did in your original Italian and will likely distract your reader from the story. 

These discrepancies may be acceptable for the translation of other types of documents, such as a website or a magazine article. However, it is NOT acceptable for a book that you've poured your heart and soul into for months or even years. Your book is an extension of yourself, it is a beautiful creation, and it needs to sound just as beautiful to a native English speaker.

If a non-native English translator tells you they can do a good job, they may very well be right. But I can almost guarantee you that they CANNOT do the truly excellent job—the best possible job—that you deserve.

3. Be wary of using an agency. 

Agencies are great if you're a business with a large volume of documents and content to translate. Agencies usually have a large number of translators available and can often get these types of translation done quickly and in an acceptable manner. 

However, given the length of most books, it's highly unlikely that the same translator will translate your entire book if you use an agency. Instead, your book will almost certainly be divided among multiple translators, despite the agency's claims. Why is this bad?

Although each translator is likely to be at least somewhat qualified, each translator will have varying skill levels and styles. At best, this means that your book will simply have slightly different tones in different sections. At worst, your book will have sections that are of much lower quality than others. 

This is not a hypothetical scenario, but one that I have personally experienced. For example, an author recently asked me to help him choose between 2 short sample translations of his book provided by 2 different agencies. Although the samples were short (about 3,000 words), I quickly realized that 2 different translators had worked on one of the samples. The quality and tone were so different that I could detect it almost immediately!

As I'm sure you know, consistency in a book is so important.  A good translator will ALWAYS go back and make changes for consistency at the end of translating a book. She internalizes your book thoroughly, taking notes and asking questions throughout the translation process. By the end, she knows your book so well that she can go back and make sure everything is coherent.

Lastly, many agencies have been known to use their best translators to provide you with a sample translation, then switch to less qualified, lower-cost translators for the rest of the book. A classic bait and switch. If you're interested in this topic, I recommend this blog post by a fellow translator, Rose Newell: Bait and Switch: How Translation Agencies Scam Everyone.

When you hire an individual translator, you know who you're dealing with!

4. It cannot be done super quickly.

You probably want to get your novel out to an English-speaking audience as quickly as possible, and that's understandable! But if you find a translator who says she can do it quickly, ask yourself: how is this possible? What shortcuts is she taking to get it done quickly?

What is "quickly," though? The professional standard for translation is 2,000-2,500 words a day, although if the content is familiar or relatively simple, a good translator may be able to do 3,000 or 4,000 words a day.

In short, any translator who translates much more than 2,500 words of a novel a day will probably either have to rely heavily on AI or machine translation and/or sacrifice quality. Why? It is simply impossible for a single human to translate more than that and maintain the quality your book deserves.

Let's say you have a 90,000-word book to translate. Using the professional standard of 2,500 words a day (which you can confirm with a quick Google search), it will take a good translator a minimum of 36 days just to translate your book. 

Assuming that your translator takes a break on the weekends (which is good, because that also helps ensure quality!), this breaks down to just over 7 weeks for translation.

Now let's talk about the final editing. Let's say it only takes 24 minutes to edit 1,000 words (as stated here), we need 40 hours (or 1 full work week) to do a good edit. (Note that many say that the 24 minutes per 1000 words estimate is low, and that in reality it takes closer to an hour per 1,000 words. Your translator may well need 2 or even 3 work weeks to edit your book properly.)

In summary, for a 90,000-word book, I would not recommend hiring anyone who says they can do it in less than 7 weeks. The quality may still be okay, but it won't be excellent, simply because it's not possible! There aren't enough hours in the day. If the translator says she can do it faster, she is taking shortcuts.

5. It cannot be done super cheap.

This is probably everyone's least favorite point, but unfortunately with translations—as with so many things in life—you get what you pay for. In the example above, where a translator needs a minimum of 7 weeks for a 90,000-word novel, that translator would only be able to work on your book for those 7 weeks. 

The 2,500-word-a-day quality standard for translators does NOT mean translating 2,500 words of a book in the morning, then translating other documents in the afternoon. It means 2,500 words a day, period. So a good translator would either work only on your book for those hypothetical 7 weeks, or she would tell you that she needs more than 7 weeks for your book so that she can fit additional translation projects into her schedule.

Regardless of the delivery date you and your translator agree on, your translator is still dedicating 7 weeks of work to you, even if those 7 weeks are spread out longer than a straight 7 weeks.

Just for comparison, you might ask yourself how much you personally would need to earn during a 7-week period to maintain your lifestyle. If a translator proposes an amount that is significantly less than what you would consider a living wage for the amount of time she spends, something is wrong. 

The best-case scenario is that she's independently wealthy and doesn't need more money to live. In this scenario, it's almost as if the translator is doing charity work! The worst case scenario (and frankly, more likely) is that she's actually taking shortcuts with your translation so that she has time to do other work, whether translation jobs or otherwise.

6. Find someone who specializes in books.

Most professional translators choose a specialty so as to provide the highest quality translations. As you might imagine, translating a book is much different from translating other types of material, such as legal documents, websites, medical information, technical reports, etc.

While all translators should be good writers to some extent, book translators must be exceptionally good writers in English. After all, they're not just conveying factual information, but sharing a vibrant and complex story or message, as well as accurately conveying important cultural or linguistic nuances. You'll want to find someone who specializes in translating books and has a track record of delivering beautiful translations.

Take care not to be scammed by those claiming to be translators simply because they know another language.

7. You need to find someone you trust.

Unfortunately, if you're an Italian native speaker, no matter how good your English is, you cannot fully evaluate the quality of an English translation. If you're very good at English, you can probably spot outright bad translations, and maybe a few degrees of good vs. better. But you will not be able to distinguish between technically "good" and truly outstanding, for a variety of reasons that I cover throughout my website, including concrete examples here. 

In the meantime, you can do a Google search on the subject and find plenty of resources on why people are unable to fully judge the quality of translations into their non-native language, no matter how well they speak it. Even I, as a professional Italian-to-English translator, am not suited to fully evaluate a translation to Italian. I can judge many aspects of it, but to make the final decision about the quality level needed for a book, I would only trust an Italian professional.

So this means you need trust. This is the hardest part of all, and I wish there was a 100% foolproof way to determine who to trust, but unfortunately, with so many things in life, the best you can do is research as much as you can and be as diligent as possible. Here are some recommendations to help you with that research.

a. Read reviews from the translator's previous clients. This should be pretty obvious! What do we do when we need a new plumber or mechanic? Read the reviews! Ideally, the reviews should be from a variety of people, and maybe even on different platforms, just so you know they're legitimate.

b. Read reviews of the books the translator has translated. This isn't a perfect method, because the reviews are obviously about the author's work, and as you probably know as an author yourself, not everyone is going to like a book, no matter how well it's translated. Of course bad reviews do not necessarily mean a bad translation! But you can at least make sure that there are no reviews that specifically mention a bad translation or awkward phrasing.

c. Most importantly, always ask for a sample translation first. A good translator will be happy to provide one because she knows you are making a big investment. Note that you will have to pay for the sample translation because the translator is giving you her time, but some translators, like myself, will deduct this amount from the full translation if you decide to proceed with the full book. I recommend that you choose one of the most complex and/or nuanced passages in your book so as to get the best sense of the translator's skill level.

(For more tips, see What Should I Look for in a Sample Translation?)

d. Many people claim to be "translators" simply because they speak 2 languages and want to see if they can make some money by creating a platform on Fiverr, Upwork, or elsewhere. To try to avoid this, find someone with a serious and extensive online presence as a translator: someone who would have a lot to lose if they were to deliver a poor translation.

8. Trust your gut. 

You'll be working with your translator for several weeks and trusting them with your precious creation. Get a feel for their personality and professionalism through their website and when they communicate with you. Is it someone who you feel understands you and respects your work, someone who will take the time and make the effort to get everything just right for you?

Some authors have told me that their intuition pointed to me and they were very happy that it did. Sometimes you just know!

See the next article: How Much Will It Cost to Translate My Book?